Thursday, January 15, 2009

Author Pam Ward will read and sign her latest work, "Bad Girls Burn Slow"Pam Ward is a third generation native of Los Angeles who likes to write about, politics, strife and the freeway long rides through the streets of L.A. A California Arts Council Fellow in Literature and a New Letters Award winner, she has had her work published in Scream When you Burn, Grand Passion, Calyx, Catch the Fire, Men We Cherish and Best American Erotica, to name a few. Her first novel, WANT SOME GET SOME, Kensington 2007 is a ode to Los Angeles and takes place a few years after the ‘92 riots. “I lived through two LA riots and couldn’t wait to jump in my car and go down Crenshaw to see what the hell was going on in April of ‘92.” Armed with her Rottweiler, Pam rolled down the boulevard behind a caravan of Crips who were videotaping the event on their motorcycles and SUV’s while waving blue scarves.“I wrote WANT SOME GET SOME on my front porch during the three week hiatus the riot created from my design business. None of my clients wanted to come where I worked off Crenshaw and Adams so I had a great window to do something else creative.” Writing the whole book long hand, using her daughter’s notebook paper. Pam was literally seething. “I was breathing in all that riot smoke, watching telephone poles blaze up like big Christmas trees as gangs of folks raced home with fresh stolen booze. Nobody on the news was reporting what I saw.”Pam’s second novel, BAD GIRLS BURN SLOW, August 2008 takes place during the historical McMartin Preschool Trail and the witch hunt which ensured. “I became fascinated with the unleashed power children had during that period and wanted to create a child villain. Living right next to Rosedale, the second oldest cemetery in Los Angeles, I thought it would be great to use the funeral business as a back drop. Finding wonderful facts, like LA Unified being built over City Cemetery, LA’s oldest and now defunct cemetery, served as fuel and folly. Since I have both cops and robbers in my blood my stories have lots of criminal elements, and as a UCLA political science student, I am driven by societal conflicts and base my novels on actual Los Angeles facts.”As an LA poet, Pam wrote, published and ran a small press for community writers called Short Dress Press, publishing the first anthologies such as Picasso’s Mistress and The Supergirl's Handbook. “It was a natural step as a writer and graphics person.” A former instructor and current mentor at Art Center College of Design, a daughter of an architect and consummate entrepreneur, “I’m a progression of the wild wild west. My family gave me a keen sense of awareness and unwavering pride which I wear like bullet proof vest."

Friday, January 2, 2009

Join us January 8th. at 7:00 pm Art Walk Night for a reading by Stan Lerner of his book "Criminal"

Prior to the age of 13, Stan Lerner, the child prodigy was already being compared to the great artists of history. A painter inspired by Miro and writing reminiscent of Poe and Tolstoy, few questioned his artistic destiny. Today he stands almost alone as the towering artistic force of our time. From the paintings of Black Period to the motion picture Meet The Family and the Las Vegas spectacle Night Tribe, he has done nothing less than shift the paradigm of his chosen media. An artist�s artist, his name resounds in the worlds of both art and business. But more than this, he has been a light to the disenfranchised. Embracing the dark yet not afraid to find humor or reveal the pure sexual celebration of music, Lerner�s diverse pallet intoxicates the senses. Born and raised in East Los Angeles, Stan Lerner the author is the product of the worst public school systems in the United States. Yet he was accepted to UCLA where he attended, and was perhaps most distinguished for his lifestyle and business savvy. A multi-millionaire artist by the age of eighteen his great artistic talent was perhaps eclipsed in the public eye by his fantastic wealth and fast lifestyle.Ultimately the death of his beloved father gave him the focus to pursue his artistic talents singularly. As a painter, playwright, musician, choreographer, screenwriter, director, and novelist, triumph after triumph has ensued.The one time jet setter is now hardly seen in public.The Lerner work however is never ending and always evolving. It is hard to imagine that such a profound body of work spanning more than twenty years is the work of a man in his early forties. Lerner now only further solidifies his place in history and his value as a national treasure with every artistic endeavor.